


low hood, high speed

by PenelopeJadewing



Series: Hambleton's Ice Creamery [4]
Category: Hambleton's Ice Creamery, Original Work
Genre: Gangs, Gen, Magic, Oneshot, Pining, Slice of Life, Urban Fantasy, skating shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23088757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenelopeJadewing/pseuds/PenelopeJadewing
Summary: Giuseppe inhaled the cold deep into his chest, trying to savor the night air. Instead, he got a lungful of diesel and choked on it. The fumes mixed with the chill and caught something in the recesses of his chest and sent him into a fit of coughing.Beside him, Dori laughed a little into the wind. “…You okay, there?”“Yeah, yeah,” Giuseppe croaked, hand over his mouth, making a grand effort to smooth the fit over. But maybe, making Dori laugh made the fumble well worth it. “Don’t mind me, just tryina snort the breeze.”
Relationships: Giuseppe Lumpkin & Ulysses Doorman
Series: Hambleton's Ice Creamery [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1479212





	low hood, high speed

**Author's Note:**

> Hey gang! For those who didn't see my announcement over on deviantArt, the schedule for this series is gonna be altered just a smidge after this chapter. :V I don't have the space here to explain everything, bUT TL;DR version is that I'll be uploading public chapters once a month for the sake of my sanity, with the additional Patreon-exclusive content here and there. You can read more about it in my dA post: http://fav.me/ddrlyum

The wind wrapped around his neck and whispered in his ear the moment he stepped from the still, silent warmth of the empty diner into the steepening chill. Over the rooftops of the lonely little strip mall, through the skeletal silhouettes of the treetops, the sun slowly surrendered its domain to the creeping shroud of twilight. And yet, the city showed no sign of drowsiness. He could hear the race of rubber on the road down the back, out of sight, a thousand and one commutes taking the tidal wave of Lore’s populace from their day jobs toward the comforts of a waiting home. It was a cold one, for late February. Anyone with sense probably had the heat on high and a pair of gloves to keep out the chill of hands on a frozen steering wheel. Outside, exposed to the elements, he could see his breath in the air, before the wind whipped it away. The breeze was playful tonight. 

Though, it always had been.

Turning away from his moment of basking in the sunset, Giuseppe opened his mouth to ask his companion a nice, movie scene-worthy question for dramatic effect, but he was beat to it. 

“Ready?” Dori said, his pastel board suspended carefully over his shoulder. Azure eyes looked him over up and down from under the shadow of a tattered ball cap.

Giuseppe’s grin widened. “You betcha.”

Equipped with their respective sets of wheels but not quite ready to utilize them, they instead used their trusty feet, their worn secondhand sneakers, to take them to the nearest bus stop in short order, as golden streams of sunset light shot between every building and across the sky in thick, beaming shafts like a final farewell at the end of a light show. The wind accompanied them, at their backs, in ripples that stirred the naked trees, bounding, twirling, ready for the evenings’ coming antics. An east wind—said to bring change.

Perhaps it was the golden hour in its prime. Perhaps it was his Trickster core that resonated so thoroughly with the rush, the way the breeze flew so freely. But his heart grew loud in his chest, amplified by his good company, beating in his ears not loudly, but readily. Hungrily. It had been a while—at least a month, if not longer—since he’d set off toward the heart of the city. Usually, he had fairly good reason to avoid it.

But it was skate day. He’d already missed it last month; Ji usually accompanied him, but last month had been The Anniversary and this month, Ji had simply said:

_“It’s a new moon. I’m staying inside.”_

Nobody knew what that was supposed to mean, but Giuseppe had never been about pushing people into doing things they didn’t want to do. So he’d kept his mouth shut and asked Dori if he wanted to go out for the evening instead. Though he was usually the homebody of them all, he’d agreed after some thought, to Giuseppe’s delight. It wasn’t often enough that he got to spend leisure time with the Hambleton’s resident philosopher. 

Dori seemed somewhat tired tonight, though. There was always an echo of deep and absent thought in those blue eyes of his, but in the waning light, they seemed to glisten with something more. Something heavy. He was never one to talk about himself much; Giuseppe could never quite put his finger on what could be going on in his head. It was different from the rest. Hye was a fountain of chatter, Sundance was introverted but not afraid to speak up about something he didn’t like. Ji too never shied away from letting people know just what he was thinking. And Sam was the boss; nobody dared to ask. 

Dori always asked after others, but kept himself under wraps. Getting to know him came in fragments.

So as they sat on the small bench to await their carriage into the metropolitan jungle, Giuseppe decided to risk a question.

“You okay?” was all he said, just loud enough to be heard over the evening traffic. He didn’t want to seem like he was prying. Prying with someone like Dori only even resulted in the bolt pounding shut on the vault door of his face, indefinitely locking away whatever lay behind it. 

“Eh,” Dori grunted, dismissively. The audible version of waving him off. He fidgeted, spinning the skateboard on its end between his knees. “It’s nothing. Just family stuff… Mom had to borrow more this week. Something happened with the plumbing.”

Now and then, if the inquiries were worded well and not too pointed, they’d heard about Dori’s mother over the span of the last year. Bits and pieces of trivia, like her odd sleep schedule, her smoking habits, or her constant struggle against the mighty foe that was Money. Usually, these bits came in context of Dori letting the Hambleton’s collective know that he would be a bit late on his rent contribution—whenever his mother had a surprise expense that she couldn’t cover on her own. 

“Ah,” Giuseppe replied and nodded slowly. He paused to think; he wanted to say the right thing. Dori was always so good at that and the least Giuseppe could do was give his response the same level of careful consideration that he always seemed to. “…Don’t feel too stressed about it. We’re doing okay.”

“I know, I just… I don’t like missing payments. It feels like getting behind and that stresses me out.”

Giuseppe certainly understood that. Growing up in Dumplinton, missing payments had always meant missing meals at least, losing lights at worst. It wasn’t something Sam or Marcy, certainly not Sundance or Hye, could ever truly comprehend. It was a weight shared like a dark secret just between the two of them—them, and Ji. 

There wasn’t a whole lot that could be said about it that might actually help things, no matter how he wished there was. So he simply put a hand on Dori’s shoulder, gave a light squeeze. When Dori smiled over at him and reached up to rest his long fingers over Giuseppe’s hand and return the squeeze, warmth flowered in his stomach. Message received. _Good._

The ragged scrape and hiss of familiar breaks alerted them to the approach of the Wolfdog bus, headlights bright and streaming in the darkening dusk. With its great motor rumbling loud and layered over the numerous passing cars, it lumbered up to the curb and squealed to a stop, _141 N Yellow Rd_ flashing in the EDM of its headsign. Giuseppe knew that area—the heart of Neutral Territory. No man’s land. And the location of one of Lore’s best skateparks, under the overpass near Ozwin Bridge. 

Eager to refresh the air, move on from the subject that weighed Dori’s shoulders down so heavily, Giuseppe inhaled the cold deep into his chest, trying to savor the night air. Instead, he got a lungful of diesel and choked on it. The fumes mixed with the chill and caught something in the recesses of his chest and sent him into a fit of coughing.

Beside him, Dori laughed a little into the wind. “…You okay, there?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Giuseppe croaked, hand over his mouth, making a grand effort to smooth the fit over. A flash of heat ghosted over his face, there and gone again. He wanted to laugh; but that wasn’t the best choice of action when he was busy choking on exhaust. The reverent appreciation of the evening air certainly hadn’t panned out like he’d hoped—but maybe, making Dori laugh made the fumble well worth it. “Don’t mind me, just tryina snort the breeze.”

Dori laughed again, a deep, resonant sound, so Giuseppe considered the joke a success. “How’s the diesel?”

“Oh, it’s great.” Giuseppe hacked a little more, eyes beginning to water.

“Hm.” Dori’s eyes had turned to crescents, lips pinched to fight what Giuseppe could inevitably see coming. “Maybe you took too much, too fast.”

“You think so?” With a final clearing of his throat, control finally returned to his hands. He breathed the air freely again, hoisted his rollerblades into a more comfortable perch on his shoulder.

The relief, the banter, the breeze despite its brief betrayal, all culminated in a grin on his face. Quickly wiping it away, he turned to level his companion with a good ol’ dramatic stare, met those eyes, felt a little warmer in the face at the smile Dori gave him.

Out of everybody at Hambleton’s, Ulysses Doorman had the nicest smile. It was rare that anyone managed to draw out the real thing—not the small, enigmatic, closed-lipped one he mustered up when a smile was expected, but the open one that showed his teeth, could light up a room—and therefore it was always a pleasure to behold. An even greater pleasure to know you were the one that made it happen.

“Good?” Dori prompted, raising a single eyebrow. Always making sure everyone else was okay. That was their Dori.

“Whoo!” Giuseppe gave his head a doggish shake, sighing through the flap of his lips, intent on making the silliest spectacle of himself as he could. He straightened himself with a bounce, blinking owlishly. “Okay. Yeah, I’m good.” 

Lips closing over his teeth but unable to stop smiling completely, Dori nodded and stood, slinging his board over his shoulder. “All right then.”

They clambered onto the bus in single-file, Giuseppe ahead so he could pay for fare and Dori behind so his skateboard didn’t become a hazard. The strangely unique smell of public transportation wafted over them, along with the purr of the engine and the sound of someone snoring at the back. They shuffled their way through the first, full half of the bus, past a substantial handful of travelers lounged in their seats, an untold number of them headed toward the same destination at the city center. No doubt many had stops along the way. They’d see their company shift, faces trade out for old ones. They stuffed their wheels and bags—Dori’s satchel and Giuseppe’s old bookbag—onto the cargo shelves and took a seat on an empty bench near the back, where they had a vantage point for it all. After another minute or two, the bus closed its doors with a weighty thud, the brakes eased, and the metal beast lumbered on once more.

“Do you think it’s possible to get high on diesel fumes?” Giuseppe mused out loud as the bus lurched to life, which just made Dori laugh again. 

“I really don’t think so.”

“Well, d**n.”

Giuseppe had always found buses to be exciting for some reason; like little pockets that existed between worlds, where people left their usual spheres of existence for a few brief hours every day, and yet nobody ever stopped to think about it. Wasn’t it strange to think that all these faces belonged to people with their own realities, a perspective all their own, opinions and worries, and the bus was just a transition from point A to point B in their lives. It was on buses where, for a brief time, your universe collided with several others, most of them strangers, in the spaces in between. The odds of you boarding that specific bus with those specific passengers at any given specific time felt somehow cosmically significant. 

The bus paused at two other stops in Honeyvale before the driver directed its rumbling bulk toward and onto the expressway, injecting into the vein of traffic guiding hundreds of commuters on their paths, taillights like the lifeblood of the city. The hum of the big metal behemoth was relaxing—probably more relaxing than Catalina would ever approve of. She hated whenever he rode the bus. 

With the beauty of the city surrounding and a pair of earbuds to share between them, the trip to their destination passed in relative silence—with Giuseppe occasionally muttering aside about their driver, who looked like he was mid-crisis and oblivious to the world as it passed by, or making commentary on Dori’s solid music choices. They sunk into comfortable silence, so comfortable in fact that Giuseppe began to wonder if Dori was actually dozing after ten minutes. His suspicions were confirmed when the lanky boy’s head started to loll, and he leaned a little heavier against Giuseppe’s shoulder. 

On the last few high hats of a hip-hop hit, under the inner city street lamps, the bus came to a shrieking halt at what Giuseppe assumed was the address that the headsign had so helpfully displayed when they boarded, seeing as they idled now on pavement of yellow bricks surrounded by towering office buildings. Before Giuseppe could reach for Dori’s shoulder to shake him, Dori sat up on his own. The movement yanked the earbud right out of Giuseppe’s left ear. Blearily, Dori blinked around at the bus’s interior.

“There?” he slurred, rubbing at his eyes, displacing his cap with a wayward jab of his tapered digits. 

Giuseppe tried his best to contain his fond amusement by biting his lip, harder than he meant to. Dori was the tallest person in their group, but he could look so small and innocent sometimes. “Yup, time to go, Sleeping Beauty. Upsy-daisy!”

With the helping hand from Giuseppe, Dori hauled himself to his feet, rubbed a bit more sleep from the corners of his eyes, and retrieved his skateboard and bag from the cargo shelf, then handed Giuseppe his things. 

“Did you get enough sleep last night?” Giuseppe asked as they descended the steps behind everyone else, where the bus deposited them onto the sidewalk outside the old, ivy-clad city hall. Half a dozen people appeared to be waiting to board after them.

Dori hummed, squinting at the warm glow that cast halos from the many antique gaslamps that lit the area through the shadows of the high rises. “Probably not…” 

“Why?” Giuseppe tugged the edges of his beanie lower to shield his ears from the cold. He’d neglected to wear a coat with a hood tonight. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“The usual,” Dori shrugged. Which meant he’d awakened at 3-ish in the morning and hadn’t managed to go back to sleep afterward. 

“Man, you sure you good to skate?”

“I’m hoping it’ll wake me up some, so. Yeah.”

“All right… if you’re sure.”

Dori flipped his cap around backward and nodded; a fringe of his silver-lavender hair puffed through over the snaps and bounced with the affirmative motion, which immediately had Giuseppe smiling once again. After taking a moment to sit at the bus stop and strap on his skates, he was just as ready. Off the bench he rolled and the two of them took off down the sidewalk, shooting for the southeast.

Only a few blocks lay between them and the official skatepark, but the fun began now. The city itself was an adequate playground and obstacle course, brimming with benches and trash bins and embankment walls, not to mention pedestrians even this time of night. Unlike Ji, Dori took his time on his board and kept all four wheels firmly on the ground, rolling along like a leisurely stroll, while Giuseppe put much more enthusiasm in every pump of his feet. 

He ripped off his hat. He wanted to go fast, to feel the wind roar in his ears, toy with his hair. It felt so right, like the closest thing he’d ever feel to flying. He truly believed that humans should have been born with wings. But wheels on their feet would have to do.

They streamed their way through the evening crowds, past some of the city’s oldest buildings—a bank here, a tabloid office there, parking garages and apartment buildings. All displayed the wear and tear of history in the cracks between every carefully laid brick, every settling foundation. The brick-laid roads massaged their feet every time they had to whip through a crosswalk, yelling ‘gangway!’ the whole way through. The hollow hum of the plastic wheels rattling along at high speed swallowed them up.

Giuseppe did a grind off a raised flowerbed and then hooked himself on a street-sign to slingshot back the way he came, returning to and circling around Dori with a smirk on his face, winking as he passed with his undeniably superior maneuvering. Ever unfazed, Dori just rolled his eyes and smiled back, lazily entertained.

“Enjoying yourself?” he quipped.

“Very much, yes. Thank you for asking.”

To prove this, Giuseppe reached his right hand under the back of his jacket, pulling his secret weapon from his waistband and giving it a flourish. Light sparked from the tip of the gnarled old wand, spiraled around his hand, his wrist, and then his body, forming a trail of stardust in his wake.

Dori laughed. “You’re just showing off now.”

Twirling his wand between his fingers, Giuseppe let his grin bespeak his utter lack of apology. “Course I am!”

“Is there a particular reason why?”

Giuseppe shrugged. “If you can make something more fun, why not?”

The breeze escorted them under the watchful lamp light until they reached the towering overpass, an extension of the expressway that ramped up and over an entire neighborhood, loosely following the banks of the River Wink. It bisected the downtown area, with Old Town and its countless apartments and garages on one side and a sprawling expanse of decrepit trainyards and docks on the other. Across the water, two factories belched inky clouds into the darkness, visible only by the orange highlight of the dying sun reflecting angrily on the undersides. 

Forrester Park awaited them in the shadow of the overpass, lit by more gaslamps and several much newer spotlights that towered higher and offered more ample light to the graffiti-encrusted concrete obstacle course. Even at this time of night, at least a dozen skaters skill slid and swung about its well-worn face, launching across the pool or flipping over the rails. It was mostly skateboards out tonight, and two bikes. Someone had a boom box blaring somewhere nearby, the bass and synth echoing off the cement, up to the underside of the pass, and back again in a grand echo.

They found a vacant bench along the park fringes to tuck their bags and then took to the grounds.

Dori took it easy, rolling along toward the easiest of transitions, the mini ramps, and the funbox. He zigged and zagged aimlessly, seemingly enjoying the hypnotic shift of his weight from one side to the other. Now and then, he branched out with a shove-it or an ollie, but for the most part, all four wheels on his board stayed firmly on the ground. 

Giuseppe, he wasn’t content with that. He had eight wheels, every one of them hungry for the heat of high speed, frames ready for grinding. Keeping his wand out, his light illusion still sparkling, he dropped into the pool, rapidly picked up momentum, and rocketed across the ground toward the opposite side to gain more. A jump onto the deck next to a vandalized trashcan and a few strokes of his feet saw him right back at ground level, the wind howling in his ears, cold and wild, whipping his hair and egging him on toward the nearest set of stairs. After a quick glance over his shoulder in Dori’s direction, he launched onto the handrail and slid all the way to the bottom, frames screaming against well-worn iron. 

Rocketing off the rail, he narrowly dodged a passing biker, hollered an apology, and continued his jettison toward the bowl—the best place to slingshot. 

As soon as his skates hit the transition, he braced his knees and leaned into the shift in momentum, feeling the weight on every inch of his body as it defied gravity but remained a slave to physics. He left a comet trail in his wake. In two blinks, he was headed straight back the direction he came, tearing away from the bank and watching his shadow twist and spin in all different directions, cast from several angles by the numerous streetlamps. The wind tossed his hair every which way, edges feathering his forehead, tickling along with the chill. A shiver wracked his spine, and he grinned until his face nearly ached.

This was it. This was the fix he needed. Screw diesel fumes; the wind and adrenaline granted a much better high after a long day. 

He’d lost track of his companion, however. He spun a few fluid, aimless circles, trying to spot Dori amidst the obstacles and shadows and patches of warm light. He’d left him behind in his pursuit of the stairs, and had almost assumed he’d follow into the pool. Instead, he glimpsed him back near the funbox—idling, watching.

Giuseppe’s chest swelled and he shot him a salute, which Dori humored and returned, albeit with much less gusto. That sent Giuseppe racing off toward the halfpipe, of the mind to get in a few tricks and maybe some air. His breaths dragged deep through his lungs, his blood running hot. 

It took him five straight minutes of tearing back and forth across the ramps, shooting back to the bowl, hitting the flatrails a few times, before his energy levels demanded reprieve. And water. So he let physics work its magic as he rolled his way in the general direction of their things.

He found Dori waiting at the edge of the pool, near the taller of two wallrides, sitting with his feet dangling over the ramp. He had their bags on either side of him and his notebook open in his lap, pencil to page, scribbling something down. He raised his head, most likely upon hearing the approach of rollerblades, and met him with tired blue eyes.

_He really needs more sleep…_

“That was fast,” he said, pausing his scribbling to reach for the backpack next to him. 

Still three meters away, Giuseppe opened his mouth to say ‘I could say the same to you’, but his left foot stopped cold on something he couldn’t see. His entire body lurched forward, his heart leapt into his throat. Instinct arose and buckled his knees. Despite the uncoordinated pinwheeling of his arms, he managed to land on his kneepads, skidding a whole meter before coming to a final, unexpected stop. His wand, thankfully, remained clenched in his hand.

Even as Dori jumped into the pool to hurry over, Giuseppe was doubled over laughing.

“Dude, you okay?” Dori asked in a rush, alarm in every syllable.

Through his giggles, Giuseppe peered up, met Dori’s wide eyes through his silhouette, and took a quieting breath. To get a hold of himself, if only for Dori’s sake. He certainly didn’t mind the attention; all that effort to look cool had certainly gone to waste, but a part of him wondered perhaps it wasn’t all bad… but then, he shouldn’t want Dori to worry. He already worried far too much. 

“Yeah, yeah, I-I’m good,” he said, then couldn’t help another brief laugh, and a glance over his shoulder, a fleeting search of the space that had ruined his smooth approach. “D**n rock…”

There was still a jitter to his nerves, slowly ebbing, eased further by the offer of Dori’s hand to help him back to his feet. With a smile of gratitude, Giuseppe took it and clambered up, joints still a bit jarred and wobbly. All things considered, however, he’d gotten out of that fairly unscathed. He flicked his wand, dissolving his light show, and then began brushing himself off; clouds of dust puffed off the worn denim at his knees. 

“You sure?” Dori hovered closer, eyeing him. 

“Psh,” Giuseppe scoffed, “I’ve had worse bails. Don’t worry about it.”

“All right…” The eyeing didn’t stop, but the lingering did. Dori stepped slowly back toward his spot. He hopped up and flopped onto his butt, then helped hoist Giuseppe up beside him. He handed him his backpack, into which Giuseppe immediately dug in search of his water bottle. 

After a few drinks to soothe his parched throat, Giuseppe looked over to spot Dori jotting down a few more words. With the angle, the night lighting, and the lightness of the pencil strokes, he couldn’t make out what they said—not that Dori would want him to. He didn’t try too hard, Dori’s privacy in mind, but his curiosity was piqued. 

“You seem inspired tonight,” he said, gazing across the pool. One of the skaters ollied off the vertical a little too close to the trashbin, pivoted herself with a hand on the bin’s edge for some reason, rattling it closer to the edge of the stairs before she made a rapid getaway.

Dori hummed. “Not really… I’ve got this vibe in my head, but the words don’t wanna come out right.”

“Heh. Ain’t that life.” Giuseppe took another sip of his water. 

“I dunno. You seem to do all right.”

 _You and Marcy should have a conversation._ Giuseppe chuckled a little, watching Dori’s concentrated face as he stared down his notebook page. So serious. So focused. “Maybe, sometimes. It’s just practice.”

Dori’s nose wrinkled, followed by a sigh. “Yeah…”

“You’re good with customers?”

“They’re customers. I don’t… know them, or anything. Most of them. It’s easier when I figure I probably won’t talk to them again. I don’t have to be anything; just professional.”

Giuseppe toasted his water bottle to nothing in particular. “The tightrope of customer service. How friendly is too friendly?”

“Everything in this notebook is _definitely_ too friendly.”

Giuseppe didn’t doubt that. He hadn’t had the privilege yet to read a single jot or tittle out of that book. But it was for that exact reason that he knew whatever its covers concealed between them must be terribly, beautifully personal. One day… he hoped to earn enough trust to catch a glimpse of its hallowed pages, to read even a few of the scrawls and bask in whatever wisdom they were sure to hold. The only person other than Dori that Giuseppe knew to be aware of the book’s contents was Ji, strangely enough. But then, from what he could gather, Ji and Dori had known one another for quite some time, long before Hambleton’s first opened its doors…

Giuseppe left Dori to his writing in peace for a little while after that. They sat in companionable silence, the thud of the bass from the nearby boom box still ongoing, though he still had yet to spot the source. He watched the other skaters, now down to seven, begin to slowly pace down, like the easing of tension off a spring as the night grew later. The skating became more leisure than lively. 

Which made it easier to notice a foreign sound when it broke the thrum of the night sounds, much louder than the music or the wind, the crickets or the hum of traffic on the overpass overhead. A metallic rattle and hiss—aerosol. Right behind them, in the direction of the wallrides. 

Mid-swig, Giuseppe twisted to look over his shoulder toward the noise.

In the shadows of the taller wallride, less than five meters away, a trio of figures dressed all in black huddled just outside the nearest edges of light. Two wore impractical leather pants, the third sported well-worn black jeans ripped at the knees and thighs. Two had their hoods up; the third was a werewolf, and a pureblood no less, if their big fluffy ears and bushy tail were anything to judge by. The werewolf cradled a metal baseball bat in their hands, meaning they were most likely the brawn of the three. One of the others loitered close to the wallride, paint can in hand, defacing the obstacle’s face with inky mist; Giuseppe spotted a long, delicately striped tail coiling itself nervously around one of their own legs, marking them as a Cheshire. The third among them held a dark-colored duffle bag—most likely containing more supplies in preparation for a night full of mischief. 

Under normal circumstances, Giuseppe would have simply turned back around and forgotten about them. It wasn’t any of his business what hood kids did. Everyone in these neighborhoods needed something to make it through the drudgery of daily life. Trouble was, in this case, the longer he looked at the werewolf, the more familiar they seemed. 

When recognition finally struck him, he almost choked on his water, barely refraining for the sake of the sudden need for stealth. He whirled, put his back to them and instantly felt uneasy about it, but if they happened to glance in their direction, at the very least they wouldn’t see his face right away. He started frantically screwing the cap onto his bottle and then shoved it into his backpack.

His very sudden hurry caught Dori’s attention and earned him a dubious glance. “What’s—”

 _Too loud, too loud!_ Giuseppe shushed him quickly, finger to his lips, before pointing to Dori’s assortment of belongings. “We need to leave,” he more mouthed than spoke, hardly daring to let air vibrate his vocal chords. 

He knew where he’d seen the werewolf before. He wasn’t a werewolf at all; if Giuseppe had been less of an idiot, he would have noticed the reddish hue of those ears and that tail and pegged him for a fox instead. A fox he’d crossed at least twice before, in a spotlit arena tucked neatly away in the warehouse district, Trickster against Trickster, wands flashing gold. This was Anton Latimer, wingman for the battle team belonging to a small, barely-organized organization called the JJs.

They hated him. The last time he’d seen Latimer had been just before he left the gang behind, during his last tournament. The fox had been seething, out for revenge. And after what had been done to them, Giuseppe honestly couldn’t blame him. 

That didn’t mean that he wanted to subject himself to their idea of “justice” though. He glanced back, eyed the bat, and then nudged Dori to hurry. Thankfully, Dori didn’t ask further questions and instead neatly gathered his things and stuffed them away in his bag. Then Giuseppe hopped carefully down from the deck, controlling his roll to be as gentle and quiet as he could. Dori followed his lead.

They inconspicuously crossed the bottom of the pool, Giuseppe making a beeline for the stairs on the opposite side. They could at least make their getaway with some distance between them and their potential threat. Of course, it would only count as a getaway if they were spotted, which he was hoping to avoid. He kept checking over his shoulder as they went, watching the trio closely for any movement, any shift of attention in their direction. If they spotted them… Why on earth hadn’t he worn something with a hood? That would have provided sufficient cover at a time like this. As it was, his best shot was to stuff his hat back onto his head and hope distance and time would play against Latimer’s memory.

As they crested the stairs, Giuseppe twisted into his routine glance and found Latimer’s gaze straying as well—straight toward them. 

With a muttered curse, Giuseppe gripped Dori’s shoulder and urged him faster. “Go, go, go!”

Dori looked back, looked across the pool, seemed to see what he’d seen and scrambled toward the top of the stairs. Giuseppe risked another glance back, found the fox looking near but not at them, starting to look away— 

Until a loud clatter and bang, metal on concrete, rang out like the toll of a bell, echoing up under the cavernous overpass and returning back to sound even louder. The speed of Giuseppe’s whirl almost made him dizzy for a split second. Dori shuffled away from the capsized garbage can, eyes wide and horrified. The can idled right on the edge of the first step, barely saved from rolling down and making an even louder racket, probably taking Giuseppe with it. Dori must have managed to stop it.

But it wouldn’t be enough.

A voice hollered “HEY!” from behind them, and Giuseppe lunged the rest of the way up the stairs two at a time, disregarding the instability of his skates in favor of haste. He looked back once more and spotted Latimer speaking to his companions and indicating them with an accusatory point. _No, no, bad!_

“ _Run!_ ” He threw himself into the wind once more, whipped past Dori at the same time the latter broke into a sprint alongside him. There was no avoiding the thought that he’d be unable to keep up with Giuseppe’s blades; that was inevitable. But Giuseppe couldn’t just slow down…

They had enough of a head start to make it out of the skatepark and start on their way up one of the historical streets, these less crowded than the city center. Which was good for less pedestrians to dodge, but not so good when it came to wanting witnesses, just in case. Giuseppe would prefer to dodge foot traffic that could potentially alert the police and dissuade their pursuers than the alternative—which was what he got instead. Empty sidewalks. A silent night. 

He led them a block and then T-braked to a sudden halt and spun around, to watch his friend slowly catch up, already out of breath. Every lagging second was another second in the JJs favor. 

“Okay, you go back to the bus stop,” he blurted, gesturing down the street with his wand hand. “I’ll distract them.”

Dori instantly frowned. “Sep—”

He could see the concern, the racing mind, the minuscule simmer of suspicion. Justifiable suspicion. He held up his hands. “It’ll just be a wild goose chase. Now go, get outta here! These people are _not_ above collateral damage.”

While Dori didn’t look sure of the situation at all, he backed down. He nodded slowly, adjusted his satchel strap, and took off, brushing a hand over Giuseppe’s arm as he passed.

“Be careful!” was his farewell.

Unfortunately, Giuseppe was never very good at careful. 

He waited three seconds to let Dori’s footsteps fade further away. At the end of second two, a commotion kicked up from the other end of the block and Latimer barreled into sight.

“YOU!” he barked.

Not sparing a single moment, Giuseppe pivoted and kicked into action himself, taking off on his blades in a direction different from the route he knew Dori would have to take to get to the bus stop. He swerved right, onto one of the streets adjacent to the Yellow Road several blocks up. If he went far enough in this direction, he’d reach the harbor. But he had a long way to go before then. 

He had no way of knowing if they were following, but that didn’t matter much. He knew these streets; he’d grown up on them almost as much as the raggedy avenues of Dumplinton. Hours spent on street corners, learning to isolate different muscle groups or twist in ways he’d never twisted before, at Waffles’ instruction. The two of them gawking at a cap full of zips at the end of an afternoon. And later, the countless patrols with Lief and Barb, on the hunt for new grounds to snatch and live up to their names. Which, he supposed, was what got him into this mess in the first place.

The wind flew at his back, but this time, there was no freedom with it. It felt stranger now, closer. More intent. Predatory.

It was just like the breeze to be fickle. 

All things considered, he made it rather far. He kept his pace just slow enough that they could come round the last corner and spot him just as he disappeared down another street, slowly zigzagging his way toward the city center, in hopes of getting lost in the crowds there and catching a bus before the fox could lock down his scent amidst the veritable surplus of smells at such a hub of activity. The gaslamps guided his way, but they also guided his enemy’s. And then, just a block away from the main square, after he forewent another turn in favor of a straight shot to the hub, he heard impossibly fast steps come suddenly rushing upon him.

He should have seen it coming. 

His body for the second time tonight pitched forward but this time, there was no matter of instinct or reflex that could save him from plowing into the pavement. The weight that had him pinned wrangled him down, though Giuseppe scarcely had the time or yet the wherewithal to throw any punches before he was physically hauled aside, feet dragging, into the darkness of the nearby alleyway. There, he was thrown against a grungy old trashbin, rattling his skull, before the weight was back, knee in his gut and fist in his hair. His hat had vanished. 

His captor bared an impressive set of fangs behind ruby-red lips. Giuseppe sucked in a breath.

A vampire. The third person in the trio had been a vampire. _Fabulous…_

“Oh, look at you,” he breathed, not willing to let them see him ruffled, but certainly not liking the idea of losing any amount of blood tonight. 

She just glared at him, her eyes glowing characteristic red in the darkness, and didn’t say a word. She simply held his head back, just enough to be uncomfortable and to leave his throat far too vulnerable for his current predicament. Over her shoulder, Latimer and his Cheshire friend stepped into view, in the light long enough for Giuseppe to glimpse their faces before the shadows swallowed them into silhouette. 

Latimer didn’t look pleased, despite having won the game of tag. His lip curled in distaste as he surveyed their catch. “You have any idea how much I wanna let her rip into you?”

Giuseppe swallowed and tried not to eye the vampire too obviously. “I dunno, I’ve been told I don’t taste all that great.” He paused, saw a flicker of confusion in her eyes, and then smirked a little. “But you know, my boyfriend’s not a vampire, so maybe he’s just—”

Her knuckles smashed into his mouth. His head slung to one side, several hairs in her grasp ripping from their roots. He tasted blood. 

Yet he knew she had to be holding herself back; if that blow had been anywhere near full strength, she could have knocked his head off. 

_Well, this is going nowhere good really fast._

They didn’t say anything. Why would they? They weren’t interested in talking. Still, no second blow came right away, and through his watery eyes, he couldn’t glean much from their passive expressions. 

“Listen, fellas.” He winced at the sting of pain that stabbed his upper lip when he spoke. “I’m not even in Frumious anymore. You’re not pissing anybody off here; it’s just me.”

That drew Latimer’s eyebrows low, a knot forming between. His ears flicked back. “Yeah, right, that sounds likely.”

Giuseppe shrugged as best he could, still in the vampire’s iron grip. “It’s the truth. It’s the straight and narrow for me these days.”

“Bulls**t.”

“Call Snatch up, ask her. She’ll tell you all about it.”

That earned him another punch, this one connecting with his cheekbone hard enough to make a few stars flash in his eyes. 

“Easy,” Latimer hummed. “Don’t kill ‘im, Ymir.”

The corners of the vampire’s mouth turned down, almost a pout. Then Latimer strode closer and leaned in over her shoulder to look Giuseppe straight in the eye that wasn’t starting to swell.

“Maybe we can’t get to the almighty Snatch,” he purred, his golden eyes cold and unwavering, “but we’ve got you already. I’d say that’s close enough.”

Then Ymir grinned an ominous mouthful of jagged teeth, and all Giuseppe could think was how he was glad Dori had gotten away when he did. 

_Sorry, man. I made you worry again…_


End file.
